Author: A.T.

At Home And Abroad

AT HOME

How Trump Destroyed The Economy In 10 Months (6 minutes).

ABROAD

Charlie Sykes on Trump’s National Security Strategy of the United States of America:

We’ll get to [that] in a moment, but let’s catch up first: (Editor’s note: None of these stories are parodies.)

He continues:

The new National Security Strategy is a foreign policy disaster.  As Anne Applebaum notes, “[It] is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly.”

The document is not merely a full-throated rejection of the foreign policy vision of GOP presidents like Ronald Reagan; it is a rejection of the policy vision of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Bush, and actually every president since WWII.

Even so, I’m glad they published it. Because now we have a concrete basis for debating and confronting what’s right in front of us. Republicans would prefer to deflect or rationalize what Trump is doing to America’s place in the world. Now they have to defend it. Critics need not speculate or hypothesize. It’s right there in writing.

Not surprisingly, the Russians are thrilled. And, why not? It gives them everything they could possibly have dreamed of when they embraced Donald Trump and boosted his candidacy.

Support the opposition party.  Adequate funding for infrastructure is not sufficient to assure victory — but it is absolutely necessary.  This year winter: infrastructure.  Next summer: candidates.

RECOMMENDATION

Last month, I told you about The Running Ground — though I am not a runner.  Loved it.  Now I’m telling you about It’s Only Drowning — though I have never surfed.  So good!

BONUS

Trump’s own home mortgage fraud.  At least as bad as Lisa Cook’s — so should they both be fired?

 

Of Narcissism And Ukraine

Apparently, there are two types of narcissists.

Neither is all that appealing.

Trump seems to be both.

And he has company.

From MindWar:

The Psychological War on Democracy.

A quick read.

Where Is the Will to Win in Ukraine?

Certainly not in the Republican Party or its leader — who is now not a fake wrestling hall of fame inductee but also inaugural winner of the world soccer federation peace prize (see: “vulnerable narcissism,” above).

At terrible cost to his own people — and to ours, really — Putin is winning.

Or is he?

From The Guardian:

Putin should have accepted Trump’s deal. Now Russia’s collapsing economy could lead to his downfall

His war of choice in Ukraine is an economic, financial, geopolitical and human calamity for Russia that worsens by the day. For his own murky reasons, Donald Trump, another national menace, offered him a lifeline last week. Yet Putin spurned it. These two fools deserve each other.

. . . The Trump deal, if forced through, would have split the US and Europe; ruptured Nato, perhaps fatally; reprieved Russia’s pariah economy; and probably toppled Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

These are key Russian war aims. But Putin, suffering from neo-imperial fantasies and legacy issues, said “no”. He reckons he can get it all, and more, by fighting on.

. . . Putin’s economic ruination of Russia, though still a work in progress, is matched by plummeting geopolitical influence. Bogged down in Ukraine, Moscow could only watch as Syria, a prized Middle East ally, turned to the west and Iran came under US and Israeli attack. Now Venezuela, too, looks in vain for support. Ties with China have been upended, with a humiliated Russia relegated to the role of dependent junior partner. Visiting India last week, Putin cut a needy figure in a country that, following US pressure, now boycotts Russian oil.

The “Russia is winning” narrative hinges on supposed battlefield successes. Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s aides, claimed recent territorial advances “positively impacted” the Moscow talks – meaning they strengthened Russia’s hand. That’s delusional. The gains are marginal. Despite his surprise, full-scale invasion and overwhelming advantages in manpower and materiel, Putin has utterly failed to subjugate Ukraine – a failure measured in shocking Russian casualty figures: more than 280,000 killed or injured in the first eight months of 2025; about one million in total.

How much longer will the Russian people tolerate their mass-murderer dictator-president – the Salisbury poisoner, the indicted war criminal – who, refusing all peace overtures, is now threatening war with Europe? This question is key. Putin’s readiness to risk the lives and wellbeing of ordinary Russians is only too evident, symbolised by the cynical signing-up fees and death benefits paid to infantry volunteers from poor rural areas – whose average frontline life expectancy is 12 days. Adding insult to injury, pay-outs have been slashed due to budget cuts.

. . . The Russian nation is too big to fail. Its proud history of struggle shows it cannot be beaten. But Putin can. He’s losing, not winning. And sooner or later, like the tsars and totalitarians of old, that same eternal Russia whose name he glorifies will chew him up and spit him out.

If only the U.S. — and the Republican Party — were still on the side of democracy and freedom.  And a world order that forbade one country to invade another.

Worth reading in full.

Support the opposition party.  Adequate funding for the infrastructure it provides all 8,000+ Democratic candidates is clearly not a sufficient condition to assure victory — but it is a necessary condition.  Today would be an amazing day to help.

Thanks!

 

Just wow.

I remember when Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy had to resign from the Clinton Administration because Tyson Foods give his girlfriend a $1,200 scholarship that he urged her not to accept but she accepted anyway . . . and because he sometimes used a Department-leased Jeep for non-government travel.  Later, the government spent $17 million on an independent counsel indicting him on 30 counts of things for all of which he was acquitted.  (Among other things, he was given Super Bowl tickets by the Fernbank Museum of Natural History — which he disclosed.  Details of that scandal here.)

By way of collateral damage, his top aide had his life ruined.

Clinton himself, and his wife Hillary, older readers may recall, lost $30,000 on a real estate investment called Whitewater.  This was enormous national news for, like, forever.

Not to mention the television audience of 60 million when Richard Nixon defended his acceptance of a cocker spaniel (and some some other stuff).

Things like this used to be taken very seriously.

All that has been thrown out the window.

Thom Hartmann reflects on corruption and the Emoluments Clause.

In part:

. . . Donald Trump tried to convince us in his first term that he was complying with the law by calling a press conference where we were treated to huge stacks of papers and manilla file folders supposedly representing his complex estate that he was handing off to his kids, but we soon learned it was entirely a scam: Trump was getting checks to sign every two weeks in the Oval Office, and all that paper and those folders were blank.

This second term he’s not even trying. He extracted millions of dollars from his suckers followers in exchange for his and his wife’s so-called digital coins (they’re just “collectible” digital images); the value of those “coins” has now fallen by 86% (Donald) and 99% (Melania) respectively. And don’t get me started on the so-called “Trump Phones” scam.

But those are chump change compared to the billions he’s accumulated in crypto, and the billions being thrown at Trump-branded/licensed properties being negotiated or built right now in over 20 countries including India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Vietnam, Serbia, Romania, Uruguay, and the Maldives.

Or the $400 million plane Qatar gave Trump, along with the billion-dollar Trump-branded resort they’re building for him, which were followed by the US giving that country — and only that country — an astonishing NATO-style security guarantee that our soldiers will shed their blood to defend that kingdom’s potentates.

So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that Jared, after taking $2 billion from the Saudis along with his $25 million/year “fee,” would insert a paragraph into the Russia/Ukraine deal that would benefit the Saudi crown prince who’s been his top benefactor. . . .

But he inherited 3% inflation from Biden and has gotten it down to . . . 3% . . . solving what he has called the “affordability hoax” . . . and he has developed (though not shared) “the concept of a plan,” now nine years in development, to provide his followers with excellent health care “at a tiny fraction” of the cost . . . and he has kept taxes low for billionaires . . . and persuaded his followers that immigrants are garbage who should be disappeared without due process  . . . and we are going to take the first step toward ending this unAmerican nightmare on or before January 4 when we retake the House.  And, possibly, the Senate.

An adequately funded opposition party is only one of the things we need to pull that off — but it is an absolutely necessary thing.  Now is the time to fund infrastructure.  Next summer and fall is the time to fund candidates.  Please help in a big way, if you can.  Democracy is hanging by a thread.

Today’s Indivisible call starts at 3pm Eastern.

 

Lying And Unwell

THE PRESIDENT IS LYING

Constantly.  Though maybe it’s not lying in the traditional sense if you’re unhinged from reality, living 24/7 in your own reality.

Whatever it is, it’s disheartening that 36% of our fellow citizens, give or take, are okay with a lying or delusional president.

Case in point from his latest Cabinet meeting: “I inherited the worst inflation in history.”

No, he inherited 3% inflation.  Which is about where it remains today.

(Inflation peaked at 23.7% in 1920 . . . nearly 14% in 1947 and again in 1980 . . . and 9.1% during the worst of the COVID supply chain disruptions in the middle of Biden’s presidency . . . but had dropped to 3% by the time he left, leaving Trump an economy The Economist called “the envy of the world.”)

THE PRESIDENT IS UNWELL

Dr. Gupta: Trump’s MRI Excuse Raises More Questions Than Answers.

(And if you missed Monday:  ‘Trump will not make it to the end of this term compos mentis’ | Psychologist analyses Trump.)

BONUSES (h/t Meidas)

> Conservative columnist George Will in the Washington Post: ‘A Sickening Moral Slum of an Administration’.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.

> Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

Juan Orlando Hernandez isn’t just a drug lord, he’s a murderous drug lord. Among the things he was accused of doing was having a former ally hacked to death with a machete while in prison, because he was afraid the man would rat him out. Trump just freed him.

Hernandez served 2 years of his 45-year prison sentence.  Trump determined that was enough.  He didn’t just commute the sentence by 95%, he issued a full pardon.  Hernandez had been convicted of facilitating the trafficking over 360 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

How do Trump’s supporters justify that?  How does it make America great?

 

Time For Criminal Referrals

Trump’s Plan Is Now Out in the Open, writes Peter Wehner in The Atlantic: “It’s getting ever harder to avoid connecting the authoritarian dots.”

Trump is in the process of building his own paramilitary force. He is invoking wartime powers to deport people without due process, even suggesting that American citizens may be sent to foreign prisons. He has deployed National Guard troops to cities over the objections of local officials. In a speech to American troops in Japan, he warned: “If we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard.”

My colleague Tom Nichols, a retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, warns that eventually what Trump is doing will become a new principle for the use of force: “He is acclimating people to the notion that the military is his private army, unconstrained by law, unconstrained by norms, unconstrained by American traditions.”

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the senior judge advocates general, removing the officials who could obstruct the execution of unlawful orders from the commander in chief. Their dismissals will also have a chilling effect on those who remain. The firing of the JAGs is just one element of a broader purge of the military, which started at the beginning of Trump’s second term. In February, five former defense secretaries, including James Mattis, who served under Trump in his first term, wrote a letter to lawmakers, saying the dismissals “raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the president’s power.”

Think about it: Senator Mark Kelly, et al, told the military not to break the law — for which Trump said they should be hanged.  And now Kash Patel is investigating them.  Really?

Asking Soldiers to Obey the UCMJ Isn’t a Crime; But Trump Thinks it is.

Before Elissa Slotkin participated in that video, she posted this one (2 very wow minutes) which suggests, as Wehner does, that Trump may just be setting the military up for a change toward a more authoritarian direction.

Wehner concludes:

If America recovers, the path will lie not simply through electoral politics. The fate of the country rests on the recovery of republican virtue, the cultivation of an active passion for the public interest, and a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the common good. Words and phrases such as honor and love of country have to stir people out of their lethargy and into action.

We saw some of that in the “No Kings” protests, but much more needs to happen. My colleague David Brooks, citing the work of the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, reminds us that “citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy.” Whether we step up or not is a matter of civic will and civic courage. Can we summon those virtues at a moment when American ideals are under sustained assault by the American president?

A final thought: As we continue along this journey, into places none of us has ever quite been before, it is worth holding close to our hearts the words of the Czech playwright and dissident Václav Havel. They moved me when I first read them, in the early 1990s, when so much was so different, and I have cited them several times since, but they hold more meaning now than ever.

“I have few illusions,” Havel wrote. “But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”

Two who are definitely striving in that good cause are Stuart Stevens and Simon Rosenberg.  Their conversation yesterday is not to be missed.  (I’ve saved you the first 80 seconds of “great to see you” stuff.)

It’s past time, they say, for some form of highly publicized criminal referrals . . . now, addressed to some future Justice Department, once we have one again . . . both to call out what’s been done and to make potential perpetrators think twice about doing more.

Support the opposition party?

 

2028

Loads of wonderful young people have decided to Run For Something in 2026, many of them ex-military or CIA, following in the footsteps of people like Senator Elissa Slotkin and Congressman Seth Moulton with a special devotion to support and defend the Constitution.

And then, after we win back the House and quite possibly the Senate (thank you for your help!), there will be 2028.

Among the governors who may be in the running are Gavin Newsom, 58; JB Pritzker, 60; Gretchen Whitmer, 54 . . . and Andy Beshear of Kentucky (47), whose recent Washington Post essay, How Democrats can change rural red to blue, argues that “Democrats should be the party of aspiration — and talk like normal human beings.”  Notions, I dare say, shared by virtually all our potential candidates.

And then there’s the guy who, aged 38 (now 43), won the 2020 Iowa primary.  Can a gay man be elected president?  Scott Galloway and Ezra Klein discuss.

The primaries will be wide open and, quite possibly, inspirational.*

They should help remind people of which party is which.

Ours is the party that — against consistent Republican opposition — gave the country weekends and the 40-hour work week; Social Security and Medicare; the minimum wage and consumer protections; the Affordable Care Act and the Family & Medical Leave Act; the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act; cleaner air and water; a whole suite of equal rights for LGBTQ Americans . . .

. . . and the kinds of policies that led to far stronger job gains (10 of the last 11 recessions began under Republican presidents, not counting the one that may be brewing now).

We’ve not been perfect by any means; but we’re really tried — including on immigration, where Republicans killed needed bi-partisan reform in 2007 and again in 2013 and 2024.

How to encapsulate all this into a single, over-arching theme?

As described here two weeks ago, Strong Floor, No Ceiling, is one possibility clearly gaining traction.

OUR PRESIDENT MAY BE UNWELL 

‘Trump will not make it to the end of this term compos mentis’ | Psychologist analyses Trump

*With at least a touch of this 18-year-old Dutch boy’s youthful idealism (60 seconds).

 

Leaving MAGA — An Off-Ramp

He calls it an “e-book,” but at 9,500 words — and free — My MAGA Odyssey is really just a wonderful short story.

In three parts.

I. Why I Gravitated To MAGA
II. Why I Left MAGA
III. Empowering Others to Leave MAGA

Once a prominent MAGA voice, Rich Logis writes:

I know many will ask: “It took you seven years to leave?”

It’s a fair criticism. I don’t have a good answer as to why I defended, and justified, over and over, the indefensible and the unjustifiable. I was always convinced that MAGA’s adversaries were far worse. I bought into the dehumanization of our opponents. I appreciate that these answers will be unsatisfactory to many.

As I spoke and wrote as much as I could about how I left MAGA, I decided I needed to do more to reach out to others who were in my position. That’s why I founded Leaving MAGA. I want it to provide an off-ramp of sorts to those who are having doubts and/or are considering leaving the movement. It’s also a safe space, a community for those who are ready to return to who they were before MAGA clawed into their hearts and minds.

Finally, Leaving MAGA is a resource for those who want to reach out to friends and/or loved ones in the movement.  I am living proof that it’s possible to leave MAGA. Let’s get to work to again find peace with our family, friends and neighbors in MAGA.

Read his “book”?

Visit his website?

And the many stories you’ll find there of others who’ve left MAGA, like this young man’s, or this young woman’s . . . each one an interesting personal struggle.

I increasingly believe we’re going to win.  Please help if you can.

 

Recommendations

I wish all our little speculations had quintupled over the last year or two, as HYMC has done (and yet I’m still holding two-thirds of my shares).

In the meantime, though — while I hope for great things from PRKR and ANIX and CNF and OPRT and RNGE and VERU, among others, all to be purchased only with money you can truly afford to lose — I have some other things to suggest:

BROADWAY

I’ve previously plugged Just In Time and Chess if you can squeeze Broadway into your budget.

Let me now add one more — Spelling Bee — and happily echo the New York Times: “TENDER, JOYOUS, BITTERSWEET, and VERY, VERY FUNNY.”

I had never seen the original (and have never attended an actual spelling bee), so when four participants were called up from the audience last week (only the last of whom I recognized as a star, Daniel Radcliffe), I was wondering — “Wow.  Really?  They could be selling those four seats rather than wasting them on cast members — and wait!  Why aren’t they advertising Daniel Radcliffe?!”  (I was wondering these things because I am a small investor in the show.)  But it turned out they had sold those seats.  All four were paying theater goers who only upon arrival had signed the nightly volunteer list to get up on stage.  So every night’s performance is a little different, with different jokes — and I can’t wait to see it again.  It is, indeed, very, very funny.

AUDIBLE

I’m not a runner, but The Running Ground was given lots of stars, even for slugs like me, so I figured I’d give it a try.  And finished in less time than it would take me to walk the marathon (if I would ever walk that far, which I never have and never would).  The last time I ran was 33 years ago, from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel up to and around the Reservoir, with a Secret Service detail.  I embarrassed myself too thoroughly to elaborate here, except to say that in the seventh grade, preparing to sprint 100 yards, Coach Athans told me to lean forward and run on my toes.  He forgot to mention that this works for sprinting only — so for the next 34 years, up until my final run, that’s in fact how I ran any distance, building calf muscles the size of unabridged dictionaries.

I digress.  I finished listening to The Running Ground over a series of a few power walks, eager to recommend it to runner friends of mine — and non-runners alike.

LATE-NIGHT

Lots of presidents have been known for their senses of humor; and we have elected some dim bulbs.  But have we had a buffoon before?  Seth Meyers takes a closer look.

60-SECOND SPOT

Daddy — How Was Your Day? 

Have a great weekend!

I increasingly believe we will, in fact, be able to save our democracy.

More on that next.

 

Five Minutes To Watch Before Football

INEQUALITY

Scott Galloway: “The reason we put an insurrectionist and a rapist in office” — 90 must-watch seconds (no need to stick around after they cut away).

MAGAns will agree with almost all of it.

PAUL KRUGMAN ON CRYPTO

“Nobody’s using it for anything legitimate“– 30 seconds.

The longer version, condensed here:

The Trump Trade is Unraveling.

At this point Bitcoin is largely a Trump trade. Why?  Partly because Trump, whose family has in effect received massive bribes from the crypto industry, has been rewarding that investment with pro-crypto policies. Notably, Trump has signed an executive order intended to allow ordinary Americans — who, again, generally don’t know what they’re getting into — to invest money from their 401(k)s in crypto assets.

More broadly, crypto is, as I’ve suggested, increasingly a tool for financial predators, and the Trump administration is extremely predator-friendly.

The administration has been doing all it can to dismantle institutions, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that were created to help keep investors and markets safe after the 2008 financial crisis. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, and other Trump officials and allies — including some officials at the Federal Reserve — have also been doing all they can to undermine bank supervision, which tries to limit the kind of risk-taking that brought on the 2008 crisis.

All of this is bad for small investors and bad for financial stability. But it’s good for financial schemers like the people and institutions promoting Bitcoin.

So how should we understand Bitcoin’s recent crash? Think of it as the unraveling of the Trump trade. Trump remains as determined as ever to reward the industry that made his family rich, and those around him are as determined as ever to make America safe for predators of all kinds. But Trump’s power is visibly diminishing, so the price of Bitcoin, which has in effect become a bet on Trumpism, has plunged.

OUR DEEP BENCH

It’s exciting to see so many spectacular young Democrats running for office to get America back on track.  Many come from the military.  This one is an ordained minister and a rocket scientist (150 seconds).  No military service but his wife is a combat veteran.  He’s running to unseat the consumer-unfriendly Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee.  I think he just may win.

!HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

How To Make Friends As An Adult

But first . . .

The Cruelty Is the Policy, writes his niece Mary:

When Donald came into office, he almost immediately defunded U.S.A.I.D.  Doing so hobbled America’s ability to deploy soft power which is a vital tool it has used in the past to create alliances, spread democracy, and expand its global influence . . . leaving a soft power void for our adversaries like China to fill.

Donald doesn’t care about starving children in America, so there’s no reason to think he’d care about starving children anywhere else in the world, especially if they aren’t white.  Since defunding U.S.A.I.D., at least 400,000 who should still be alive are dead.

America has become the enemy of combating disease and feeding children, all thanks to the fact that tens of millions of people thought that it was a good idea to put a man in the Oval Office who has no basic human decency and cares nothing about humanity.

Not to mention the monumental corruption, obstruction, bullying, lying, vulgarity, and incompetence.

Some Congressional Republicans may not have the stomach for much more.

Indeed, writes Lev Parnas . . .

Marjorie Taylor Greene May Be Just the Beginning

Marjorie Taylor Greene announcing she’s out isn’t just some random drama. She’s the visible tip of a much bigger iceberg that’s been forming under the surface for a long time. My phone has been buzzing with messages from people inside Trump world. They’re all saying the same thing in different ways: this is not a one-off. This is the beginning of something much larger.

My sources are telling me flat out that there are more Republican members—already looking for the exits, talking about early retirement, mid-term resignations, and ways to get out before the next wave hits. Some are eyeing cushy lobbying or TV gigs. Others just want out before the Epstein files fully explode, before the legal and political cost of staying on Team Trump becomes unbearable.

. . . My sources are clear: if just a few more dominos fall, the House can flip before the midterms.

You know who else may be gone soon?  Kash Patel, the FBI’s Agent of Chaos, who should never have been appointed in the first place, of course, and who is now Under Scrutiny for Use of SWAT Teams to Protect His Girlfriend.

And now . . .

Making friends as an adult is hard. Here’s the secret.

grateful for your readership

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!